This sheer meaninglessness, is one of the key overarching themes of Sophie’s Choice. It’s a book that seems frequently to yearn towards meaning and yet has strong undercurrents of nihilism.

My son Paul was starting to come through. His cocky smugness began to vanish. The good kid I knew that was deep down inside him was starting to peek out from behind his veneer of twelve-year-old arrogance.

One day I woke up and realized I really knew zilch-all about our seminal founding father. Really. Somebody needed to give that Cherry tree story the ax. I realized that somebody had to be me.